Printing with Coffee!

Hartatak62 · 2015-09-23T03:45:53.000Z

I have developed a bit of an addiction to trying out new and interesting materials on my Lulzbot KITTAZ printer. So, when I heard that a US-based company (www.3DomUSA.com) starting producing filament with the waste byproducts from coffee (WoundUp), I couldn’t send them my money faster.

It arrived quite quickly (they’re only 2 states away from me!) and was packaged with a packet of coffee grounds instead of the traditional silica gel. Upon opening it, I was greeted with an intense coffee scent to remind me (not very subtly) that I was about to print with real, honest-to-goodness coffee. It was a nice touch that, admittedly, added to the novelty of printing with it. I also noticed the “Eco-Spool,” which is their plant-based plastic spool, which they claim is better for the environment…which is nice.

Without hesitation, I loaded it onto my printer and checked the 3DomUSA website for printing instructions. It informed me that I should use standard PLA settings, but also suggested a few parameters to use. I eagerly generated my g-code for a 300% scale Marvin, loaded it up, and hit Print! As the filament melted and began to extrude, my entire workshop started to smell like a Starbucks…which is nice…if you’re into that sort of thing…which I am…so it was nice.

It was shortly thereafter that I found out there are differences to printing with coffee than standard PLA. Specifically, my retraction settings had to be turned way down. WoundUp seems to be “stickier” in my hot end than normal PLA, so my extruder had a harder time pulling it back out. This resulted in failed prints with a sort of cobweb effect after my filament no longer extruded because the hobbed bolt had chewed a divot into it. Another difference is that WoundUp didn’t seem to want to print at my highest resolution setting (.14mm). Instead, I had to change to .2mm layer heights, which is still quite good.

After changing both my layer height settings and retraction settings, I finally got a nice print (see attached). I’m pretty happy with how it looks. It has a sort of grainy, translucent brown appearance that I really like. It should be noted though, that because of this translucency, it’s easy to see any inconsistencies or surface blemishes (like support material contact points). Also, the z-scar is brutal because it’s thicker than the rest and it really shows up. When combined with the reduced retraction settings, this can become a significant problem if your slicing software doesn’t allow you to locate the z-scar to a location of your choosing. You can see the z-scar on the leg of my failed print in the attached pic.